The End Arrives on Furry Feet

That interminable summer the bunnies were everywhere. A heatwave had descended on what seemed like the entire world, which appeared only to make the bunnies multiply with breakneck speed - even for the well-known reproducers.

I would see them, whenever I awoke in the predawn to run before the heat clutched the streets and sidewalks between its fearsome teeth. They stood still but for their noses, which twitched with a surprising degree of awareness, suspicion, and downright malice. I quickly shook off the momentary delusion, telling myself it was beyond foolish to be frightened by a handful of small, furry creatures. 

I slogged through the 5 miles I had allotted myself to stave off the middle-aged fat accumulating like plaque all over my body. Yet everywhere I sped - over the browning boulevard, across the empty parks, through the suburban wastelands - the bunnies watched, eyes glittering, ears perked like satellites awaiting a message. Waiting, waiting. But for what?

Between the plague of bunnies and the sweltering sun, first the grass dried up and then, one by one, the trees, as though falling into a despondent stupor. Mottled patches like blisters lay scattered across once-lush lawns. Resolutely, we watered with sprinklers or cans until the governments handed down strict orders not to waste the precious water on things so mundane as grass, that great survivor of floods and fires.

Soon even the sky began to brown, the smell of smoke perennially filling my nose. The coast was burning, the reporters said. I flushed my sinuses as best I could and a steady stream of black ran out into the sink. And when the sun rose, it burned an angry orange and I wondered whether we'd been transplanted to a distant and more deadly planet. Somewhere inimical to human life.

For a time we were allowed to water our vegetable gardens; as I ran, chest heaving and mouth agape, gasping for thick air already hot, I would catch glimpses over tall brick fences or between wrought iron gates of the ignorant or selfish who stole the precious resource to maintain opulent flower pots or elaborate hedges. They deemed their decorations more valuable than the thirsty mouths or the wilting food.

Eventually, there were only small windows of time when the water main was actually on so that these naysayers could no longer waste it, and we began to horde the water in buckets to flush our toilets. Lucky for me, I had already moved to a low carb diet so my turds had shrunk to the size of a fox's, and arrived promptly but uncomfortably every third day.

When I ran across the bridges or on the desiccated path alongside the dying river, I saw housewives gathering water in tubs for their washing. Resolutely, hopelessly, they luged the fetid water up the crumbling banks. Now barely a swamp that limped along, it didn't pay to look too closely at the things that floated up, bloated and decaying among the weeds and sludge - all that was left of the once-mighty current.

Inevitably, the price of water skyrocketed, so I lived instead on milk and Gatorade, which had not yet adapted to this brave new world. In need of some luxury to soothe my burgeoning anxiety, I even took to washing my hands and face in the milk like some Victorian maiden of old. (I will admit that never has my skin felt softer, and in my extreme loneliness I wiled away the hours caressing myself while dreaming of lost lovers.)

So the bunnies presented a small, if persistent presence, as they ate the last green tips off the ferns, or began to tear the bark in strips from the willows. Soon they were so numerous that the crows grew fat, gorging on the young in gangs of midnight feathers. In droves they perched awkwardly in their swollen girth on empty eavestroughs, oddly placid and satiated.

Thereafter, bits of bunny fur drifted across the increasingly barren landscape like poplar seeds and the unrelenting brown was here and there broken by a heap of white, grey, beige.

Then one day the call of the crows disappeared.

It's a funny thing, the sudden absence of a familiar sound. Rare it had become for most to leave their homes, so the world had leaned into the relative silence of fewer cars, horns, busses. Only the diligent garbage men carried on as normal, unfazed by the slow death of the world around them.

But as I stopped to tighten my running shoes that particular morning, I heard the beep, beep of the garbage trucks and the raw and ugly sound of a bluejay, but surrounding that I heard also a remarkable absence of caws. An emptiness, where once there was a persistent cacophony scattered across the city.

I looked around, startled. No crow sat on the rooftops. No sharp beaks were outlined atop the streetlights. No murders huddled or hopped in the streets. Where had they gone? Had they abandoned the city en masse, left it to its obvious disintegration? Had civilization's longstanding avian companions abandoned her for greener shores?

The questions rattled through my head as my pounding footfalls echoed in the streets.

And then, and then - I had stopped for a red light and happened to glance over at the junipers coating the embankment, junipers that held tight to its rare greenery and shrivelled berries. There a bunny munched its breakfast, and it turned its head to see me more clearly. At the corner of its mouth, hanging onto the beige and benign fur - a tuft of downy black.

It watched me, impassive and implacable.

I watched it back, as it swallowed its bite and went on, hoping in feigned innocence up the embankment to whatever concrete wasteland lay beyond. Although it seemed impossible, inconcievable, somehow I knew that the bunnies - the bunnies had eaten the crows. Nature had turned her tables, the Lazy Susan of predator and prey, and somehow, somehow, the bunnies had finally made their play to climb the food chain.

The light changed and I ran on, though it felt now as though a sudden urgency lent strength to my aching legs. What other changes were in the air? Suddenly I thought of Hitchcock's The Birds with a deeper respect for all the small and downtrodden creatures of the earth and their far superior numbers. And underneath the respect, a primal terror prowled. 

Arriving home, I turned on the news. Not only Winnipeg, but huge urban centers had witnessed the disappearance of the crows. The footage was on every channel, from the cell phones of late-night revellers to official videos from the major networks, who had caught the sudden and violent revolution accidentally while filming "important" events.

It wasn't just the crows, either, though they seemed to be the major target, the predator against which the bunnies revolted. There were innumerable private videos of yard cats: mauled, dismembered, and eaten in that insatiable, relentless way that only a bunny has.

One woman even caught a herd of bunnies clamouring in through the doggie door and intervened before they took down her ageing labrador, who loved to chase the bunnies for sport.

The scientists had been called in; the environmental agencies appealed to. What had happened? Why had no one seen this coming? 

The talking heads were aghast, appalled, befuddled. What were all those supposed "experts" doing, anyway? they yammered in faux condemnation. Clearly, taxpayers' dollars were being wasted. It was time for reforms! It was time for action!

The performative cries of disgust and outrage swamped Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Save the crows!

But it was too late. We had made our choices, and now Nature was making hers.

The next few days were quiet, while the careless and enraged hunted the bunnies with guns, although there were always more. They strung up the carcasses around their properties, like decorations at a fair. There were no traps to be had, anywhere, and the bunnies seemed to have become too wiley for them, regardless. 

Meanwhile, an impromptu conference was called, all the top-notch scientists flown to an undisclosed location. Fearing now to leave the house, I gorged myself on boxes of cookies and takeout, watching the television as though it were an oracle and might provide real answers. 

There were comments and rebuttals - even those who denied that something strange was happening at all. They carried their signs, protesting the "fearmongering" of the media and its attempts to "brainwash" the unaware. But I had seen too many signs to believe that the current events were mere "conspiracy."

I didn't expect it would all happen so quickly, though. 

On the 7th day after the crows disappeared, I was expecting an early delivery, as I had become a shut-in. I slept later and later in the day, since I spent the nights gazing wide-eyed into the gathering darkness. So when the phone rang, it woke me with a start. I buzzed in the delivery man, but even as the sound faded I heard a string of curses through the speaker. 

The call ended but now I could hear the shouting from the ground, 40 feet below my 3rd-floor window. I hurried to see whether it was a mugging since food prices had climbed so swiftly too.

Despite the warnings, despite the news, despite the footage - I was unprepared for the gruesome scene below. A fluffle of bunnies, a mob, an army, had swarmed the poor delivery man. I could see him, under the fur, stumbling back, discarding my much-needed supplies wildly, perhaps in the hope of distracting his attackers. They were not distracted. They were ruthless. Intent on his destruction. 

And yes, I am a coward for not running down to help. 

It was over in a minute, maybe two. When the bunnies dispersed, there was little left but the plastics. A metal belt buckle. A cell phone, cracked. A pair of aviators snapped in two. 

There wasn't even a bloodstain. Almost as though the man had never existed at all.

For nearly an hour, I debated whether to try to retrieve the groceries that must have survived in their durable containers. How quickly would I need to move? Was the swarm still nearby?

Eventually, I decided there was no immediate rush. With nothing better to do, I turned on the television. There I saw the horror I'd witnessed below, multiplied endlessly. Clearly our number was up. Was this really the end, snuffed out by a tidal wave of adorable rodents?

Before I knew it, it was midnight. Over the last few hours, several of the channels had stopped broadcasting. The militaries were called in, but the bunnies were everywhere; they had built secret tunnels under the ground and we had drastically underestimated their numbers. How had they coordinated this? The bullets were running out and the horde didn't seem to be relenting.

Even the drones were all but useless against the targets, too small, too erratic. Their software couldn't be reprogrammed quickly enough to adjust for our unexpected foes.  

Then the neverending massacre was interrupted by a grainy live stream, supposedly broadcasted from the convention centre where the scientists had holed up, now overrun. It showed a darkened bunker, perhaps a janitor's closet. A poorly lit man in a white lab coat all but huddled in the corner while he spoke. 

"We have but one hope," he said, his voice raw and raspy. "They're immune to our gases and pesticides. If we're to survive this, if we're to - " static interrupted the message for a few heart-pounding moments, and I tasted blood as my teeth sunk into my tongue. ". . . flowers. A marigold flower."

Abruptly the screen darkened, as the power went out.